Below is a summary of information about our history, our pastor, and our beliefs. If you would like more information, please contact us by phone or email.

Our history.

In 1886, D.L. Moody and Ira Sankey came to Chattanooga and conducted a series of revival services that, according to the local paper, affected the whole city. That same year in September, a group of people came across the river and started a church on the corner of Kent St. and Woodland Ave and years later moved to the corner of Abernathy St. and Woodland Ave.
In 1926, then pastor, Roland W. Selman, led the church to separate into two congregations for the greater goal of reaching a larger number of people. Some of the people started the church that is currently First Calvary Baptist Church on Bell Ave. The others bought property at 819 Mississippi Ave. and built what is today Northside Community Church.

The church experienced significant growth and accomplishment during its first forty years, building a multi-million dollar church plant and seeing attendance on Sunday mornings grow to more than six hundred people. There have been a large number of great and positive moments and events over the years but the church also weathered its share of storms and difficulties along the way. At an approximate time around the late sixties or so, the neighborhood and communtiy began to shift. Many people began to move out of the area to the suburbs. The crime rate began to go up and the once positive atmosphere of neighborhood began to go down. While some churches made the decision to leave the area, Northside made the difficult decision to stay. As a result of the difficulty of trying to minister in a rapidly changing environment the church began a long, steady decline and almost shut its doors.

In hope and faithful expectation, the church began to focus its attention on growing God's Kingdom and how it could better steward the resources God had entrusted to it. As a result, the church entered into a wonderful relationship with a national missions organization called Youthworks, a relationship that blessed the church tremendously and would continue for five summers.
Later, the church would host and sponsor a number of new church plants, allowing them to use space for free so they could focus more of their resources on growing as a church and doing more Kingdom work. Through cooperating with other congregations, Northside has been challenged, encouraged, changed, and blessed.

Today, the church is a small but growing fellowship of believers effectively connecting with its community with a goal of seeing spiritual transformation take place.

Our pastor

Mitchell Reaves became the pastor of Northside Community Church in March of 1999.

He was born in Shreveport, Louisiana and moved to Chattanooga at the age of ten.
He attended Ooltewah High School until dropping out his senior year a few months before graduation.
While living in Atlanta, Georgia, his manager at work witnessed to him about his need for Christ and led him to the Lord in January 1987.
He moved back to Chattanooga where he eventually met his wife, Angela Dunn Reaves, and they were married a couple of years later.

Having received a definite call into the ministry to pastor and a sense of God's leading to go to school, Mitchell enrolled in Tennessee Temple Universtiy and graduated with a BA in Pastoral Studies in 2000.

Mitchell and Angela live in north Chattanooga at the church. They have three adult children who live in Chattanooga.

Our beliefs

Northside Community Church is a conservative Southern Baptist church. To read more about what we believe please visit the following link: 2000 Baptist Faith and Message